Abstract

In Search of the Real Hegelian Aesthetics Heinrich Gustav Hotho (1802--1873) published the three-volume Ästhetik (1835) four years after the death of Hegel. From archive research it has become clear that in the ‘compilation’ of his Hegelian Ästhetik Hotho employed mainly his own lectures of 1823. This has led to the view that Hothos’s 1823 lectures taken all together actually constitute Hegelian aesthetics. The present article seeks to challenge this notion. Hegel gave four series of lectures on aesthetics in Berlin in 1820/21, 1823, 1826, and 1828/29. Since he never wrote his own work on aesthetics, one might consider the edition of four series of lectures to be the ‘real’ Hegelian Ästhetik. This amalgam conceals difficulties linked with the analysis of particular works of art. These difficulties are not resolved in the Hegelian Ästhetik, nor can they be with the edition of the lecture notes. Towards the end of the article, the author therefore comments on two other attempts at interpretation.